We’ve mentioned a time or two our discomfort with the notion of otherwise profitable businesses using the cover of an economic downturn to cut costs by cutting off workers. Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes the bull by the bear market and articulates the situation better than we ever could. "[B]y using the economy as an excuse, the most successful pro league in sports has set a poor example for others,” Bouchette writes. “They’re throwing people out of work, not because they’re losing money but because, at best, they fear the future -- although it won’t stop the owners from staying in $500-a-night rooms at their meetings on the California coast later this month.” Boom. Roasted. “That is precisely the kind of thinking the country does not need now, and if we’re getting it from one of the nation’s thriving businesses, what can anyone else expect?” Bouchette adds. “Instead of leading in tough times, the NFL has cowered.” We made a similar point in the wake of the acquisition of Albert Haynesworth by the Redskins (it was the first story posted after the Black Friday server explosion). How can a team justify laying off good, hard-working men and women while guaranteeing $41 million to a person who, in any other line of work, would have been fired and ostracized for doing what he did to Andre Gurode? It can’t, and actions like this could jeopardize the NFL’s standing as the preeminent sports league in America.
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